In one of his last ceremonial duties as the Naval Support Activity’s final commanding officer, Capt. Brian Harrison encased the service’s blue flag in a sock-like sleeve Friday morning, bringing to a close a 110-year naval presence in the Crescent City and an end to his three-year tour as skipper of the installation he knew as a child growing up in Algiers.

Chris Granger, The Times-PicayuneCapt. Brian Harrison, center, commanding officer of Naval Support Activity New Orleans, is recognized for his service to the base by Rear Admiral Townsend G. "Tim" Alexander, left, commander of the Navy Region Southeast during the transfer of power ceremony in Algiers on Friday.

As a Marine Corps band ensemble played “Auld Lang Syne,’’ a Navy color guard carrying that flag solemnly marched away.

And shortly afterward, Lt. Col. Todd Ford and Sgt. Maj. Chris Bloebaum, commanding officer and the highest-ranking of the enlisted personnel for the new Marine Corps Support Facility, removed the Marine Corps’ colors from an olive green sleeve, ceremonially signifying that the military branch had arrived.

“Today, we celebrate both an ending and a beginning,” said Rear Adm. Townsend “Tim” Alexander, commander of Navy Region Southeast, which includes Naval Support Activity and the Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse.

Naval Support Activity in recent years was a sleepy administrative base with campuses on both sides of the Mississippi River where 4,500 military personnel and civilians worked and served as the national headquarters for the Navy and Marine Corps reserve. But during the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure round, the base was ordered shuttered. The tenants have since moved to Virginia, Tennessee and Belle Chasse, except for the Marines, who now occupy a 29-acre compound on Opelousas Avenue in Algiers.

The Naval Support Activity’s skeletal staff’s sole mission now is to close the installation Sept. 15. The private HRI/ECC will take over that day to begin the base’s conversion to Federal City, a mixed-use development that will use some of the Navy’s original buildings.

Harrison is the last in a line of 56 officers to command the Navy installation in Algiers since it began in November 1901, when Capt. J.P. Merrell led what was originally called the U.S. Naval Station, Algiers.

In military fashion Friday, sailors, Marines and local officials ceremonially ended Harrison’s tour as Naval Support Activity’s skipper. He will transfer to Norfolk, Va., to become the Naval Reserve Forces Command’s inspector general. However, his tour in Algiers won’t officially end until Sept. 15, he said.

“You’re the right guy for this job, and I thank you for everything you’ve done,” said Alexander, who presented Harrison with the Legion of Merit for his “exceptional meritorious” service as the final commanderr.

Noting he is uprooting his family again, Harrison said he has moved his family 14 times in 25 years of naval service, directing comments to his wife, Mary, their daughters, Brianna and Maria, and his mother, Emily Sylva, who still lives in Algiers. “Thank you for keeping me straight, mom, and I love you,” he said.

Officers emphasized the Navy still has a presence in the region, at the air station in Belle Chasse, where much of the naval operations that were in New Orleans have moved. They also noted the support sailors have received through the decades in the region.

“Patriotism is clearly woven into the fabric of this community,” said Alexander, who shown a light on New Orleans City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson, an ardent military supporter whose father-in-law, Capt. A.A. Clarkson, commanded the Algiers base from 1950 to 1953.

Lt. Gen. Steven Hummer, who took command this week of Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North, both headquartered in Algiers, noted that Marines first arrived in New Orleans in 1778. The Marine Corps’ national commands began moving to New Orleans in the 1970s, he said.

“Navy and Marines both have a long history in New Orleans,” Hummer said.